Thursday, November 1, 2012

Yikes, have I abandoned this dive for awhile. Apologies. Luckily, my fellow blog-horts (like co-horts, only...I'm sorry) have been quite more creative than stupid ol' me in the meantime. Such as that ever lovable and unpredictable dame Rachel at Girl With the White Parasol, who came up with this delightful Halloween Movie Meme!...about two weeks ago. I'm a bit tardy. Heh. SO HERE IT IS NOW! WHOOPS! HA HA HA!Anywho, enjoy.1. Who is your favorite movie witch?She did appear in the movie adaptation Night of Dark Shadows, so Angelique Bouchard it is:

2. What is the first movie you can remember being scared by?My poor well-meaning mother scared me away from watching Beetlejuice the whole way through when I was an itty-bitty thing because "a lady cuts her own neck off" or something (I think she was referring to Geena Davis trying to scare off the Deetzes).

Yeah. This scene.3. Name a classic horror film that would be substantially improved by better special effects.The climactic scene in the original The Fly would have had a lot more impact had the fly's actual head not looked like something a kid could pick up at a costume store.

4.Name your favorite Val Lewton film.Gotta go with Cat People, followed closely by its sequel, Curse of the Cat People. Horror with heart, with perhaps the first mainstream sympathetic female "monster."

Add to that a very eerie, sleepy mood and Simone Simon's otherworldy charm, and you definitely have a Lewton classic.5. What movie villain or monster has the most frightening "stare-into-the-camera" moment?I bet there are others more iconic, but the one that really sticks into my mind that my mother brought up recently, is the epic side-eye Cotton gives the camera (and Teresa Wright) in Shadow of a Doubt.

All blank but heavy with menace. That's the stuff.6. What is the most irritating horror film cliche?Ironically kind of a cliched answer, but I guess the Fainting Female. Screaming I get, but I'd like to think like other organisms, us chicks' immediate instincts would be to run rather than lose consciousness altogether in moments of stress.7. Are there any movies you refuse to watch alone?If a movie's too scary for me to tackle alone, chances are I couldn't handle watching it with anyone else, either. See, I'll have to be alone again eventually, and THAT'S when I'd really start freaking out.8. Picture an old childhood nightmare of yours. Now try to adapt it to film. Can it be done?Mr. Burns chasing after me? Like every "Treehouse of Horror"ever? Yeah, probably could be done.

3. Let's not forget our darling Fay (it's not a cliche if it's true!)Also, according to the YouTube poster, she doesn't wear any underwear! How nice.*As an honorable mention, I'd like to include Marilyn Burns as Sally Hardesty (or "Leatherlungs" as my dad dubs her), even though I refuse to watch all of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, due to overall cowardice. However, for sustained screaming, I hear nothing can beat her neverending howls during the notorious dinner scene (like Lanchester, I hear they looped some of her screams backwards for creepier effect).

Some of that was her own blood, apparently! Oh, the fun of shooting on location and running through brush and branches.10. What is the most disappointing horror remake?The thing is, there are so very,very many terrible horror remakes. Really, you just have to pick the one whose ludicrousness hits you in that one raw place.The 1973 Wicker Man was uneven but such a unique mixture of pastoral musical hippy-dippy hypnotism and creepy cult nightmareville that it definitely stands as an unclassifiable classic....But then in 2006 they cast Nicholas Cage as an Average Joe policeman (unlike the fervently virgin and fundamentalist Edward Woodward's Sergeant Howie), they dumbed down the script and made it a matriarchal society for some who-knows reason (oh us crazy ladies with our periods and pagan sacrifices), and stripped out the eccentricities and eerie mood and replaced it with...bees.Yup, that happened.11. We've all seen our share of vampires, zombies, and werewolves on film, but are there any mythical creatures or monsters out there that you think deserve more movies (i.e. golems, changelings, the Minotaur, etc.)? Ooh, this is a good one! I'm not sure....oh! Oh! I just looked up "creepy mythological creatures" and I'm going for Aswang from Filipino folklore all the way!

According to Urban Titan, she's a cross between a vampire and a witch! And super, duper horrifying:

Almost always female the creature is a cannibalistic eater of the dead and of the living. They can transform themselves into either a black dog or a black boar. Some of the methods effective in fending them off is the use of garlic and/or holy water. During the day they are in their human form and appear as quiet, shy, elusive characters. At night though they transform into the terrifying creatures whose trademark features include very bloodshot eyes.

Totally know what I'm going as for next Halloween. 12. Along the lines of "Scary Mary Poppins," can you think of any non-horror flicks that could easily be adapted to fit the genre?Why not All About Evil, the story of an aging leading actress's demonic possession by a seemingly innocent yet deadly soul-sucking succubus?

I guess that is kind of the plot. Just throw in a scene like Isabelle Adjani's harrowing subway ordeal in Possession, and presto!

13. And now, just for fun, pick one movie monster or villain to be remade into a cuddly plush toy, just for you.

Boris the Lovable Bumbling Monster Guy. He basically is an overgrown plush toy, just made out of dead bodies. He really wants to be your friend!

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That was fun, thank you for inspiring me to get on my lazy ass and type, Rachel! I really will try to be a better bloggette/esse/whatever, just the inventive juices haven't been real...good...lately. Maybe I need to see more movies, hmmm.....

About Me

Nerdin' it up on topics like film, books, cartoons, cake, etc. (only probably not really cake. Just trust I'm probably thinking about cake no matter what I post).
Questions? Concerns? Horrified outrage? Yell at me at worldoffsmile@gmail.com.